This week's feature is from issue 49.1 called "The Dead Walk after the Rain" by Aimee Parkison.

The Dead Walk after the Rain

Something tells me my little crow is going to be a cruel mistress like the sparrow hawk tearing flesh from bone on the smaller bodies, blood around her eyes in too much ecstasy to ever fully open. Like her, I'm feeding. Hunting, she thrives so that one day we may eventually live under her sky. Thunder strikes, lightning like a white vein across blue skin bruised by darkness. Blind, the young open their mouths to the rain, my breath, and the cottonwood seeds drifting over the wind to fall on parched grass like the first snow that will not melt away. The new trees grow so that one day we may rest in their shadow, she in their branches, and we may call their littered seeds a nuisance as they stick to our weary bodies.

Drifting to fall, we rise again.

Perhaps the crow's ancestors were like cowboys pursuing women or wolves across the fields: they had to turn away to eventually get what they wanted. Or, perhaps, hovering, they were like humming birds: their wings could never still. The first one sniffed objects that were moved inside the caves—not like the familiar farmhouse rooms—carved chairs in the wrong corners, oil lamps hidden under tablecloths, bed facing the oven. Here dogs' ears touch children's feet, and leaves brush over skin as people sway in hammocks. Tent worms spin, webs covering entire branches like lace gloves wrapping the dead woman's hands.